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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE

Climate Policy Meets Cold Reality in Europe The rush to renewables causes severe energy price spikes and shortages. Biden’s policies would do the same in the U.S. by Allysia Finley

https://www.wsj.com/articles/climate-policy-reality-europe-energy-costs-gas-coal-11632754849?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

European leaders at the United Nations last week applauded themselves as they doubled down on their pledges to slash CO2 emissions. And Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the U.K. “will lead by example, keeping the environment on the global agenda and serving as a launch pad for a global green industrial revolution.” Such vows of carbon chastity are, to say the least, ironic as Europe grapples with a severe energy shortage and surging prices wrought by its green industrial revolution.

In the past decade the U.K. and Europe have shut down hundreds of coal plants, and Britain has only two remaining. Spain shut down half of its coal plants last summer. European countries have spent trillions of dollars subsidizing renewables, which last year for the first time exceeded fossil fuels as a share of electricity production.

But renewables don’t provide reliable power around the clock, and wind power this summer has waned across Europe and in the U.K., forcing them to turn to gas and coal for backup power. Yet demand for these fossil fuels is also surging across Asia and South America, where drought has crimped hydropower. Manufacturers there are also consuming more energy to supply Western countries with goods.

Japan has become especially dependent on liquefied natural gas imports since it shut down most of its nuclear power plants after Fukushima in 2011. Even China has been forced to ration electricity to energy-hungry aluminum smelters because of a coal power shortfall. This has sent global aluminum prices soaring.

Increased global demand has caused the price of coal to triple and the price of natural gas to increase fivefold over the past year. Europe’s cap-and-trade scheme has pushed prices even higher. Under the program, manufacturers and power suppliers must buy carbon credits on an open trading market to offset their emissions. The price of credits has spiked this year as demand for them from coal plants and other manufacturers has increased while government regulators have tightened supply.

Russia is exploiting Europe’s energy difficulties by reducing gas deliveries, perhaps to pressure Germany to complete certification of its Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which bypasses Ukraine. Russia’s Gazprom has booked only a third of the available transportation capacity through its Yamal pipeline for October and no additional deliveries via its Ukraine pipeline. Europe has become ever more dependent on Russia—the world’s second largest gas producer, after the U.S.—for energy because the U.K. and Germany have banned hydraulic fracturing, letting their rich gas shale resources go to waste. Meantime, the Netherlands is shutting down Europe’s biggest gas field.

In short, all of Europe’s green chickens are coming home to roost. Several U.K. retail electricity providers have collapsed in recent weeks because of the surging price of gas. Energy experts warn that some German power suppliers are in danger of going insolvent. Germany’s electricity prices, which were already the highest in Europe because of heavy reliance on renewables, have more than doubled since February.

Going Batty Over Climate Change Michael Kile

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2021/09/going-batty-over-climate-change/

We live in an age where Climate Change™ has replaced God as the explanation for everything. The list of phenomena it allegedly causes grows ever longer. More and more young people seem to be coming down with climate anxiety and ecological distress. In a recent survey led by Bath University, UK, over half of ten thousand respondents between 16 and 25 believe they are doomed and have no future.

The twenty-sixth United Nations annual climate Conference of the Parties (COP) is only weeks away.  After a quarter of a century of concern and another two billion people on the planet, is it too late to save us from a french-fry fate? Given the sombre mood, an attempt to link climate change with the COVID pandemic was inevitable. As if on cue, a “short communication” appeared in May this year in Science of The Total Environment, Volume 767:

“Shifts in global bat diversity suggest a possible role of climate change in the emergence of SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2”.

The three authors: Robert M Beyer and Andrea Manica (Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom) and Camilo Mora (Department of Geography and Environment, University of Hawai’I, Manoa). Beyer has since taken up a European research fellowship at the alarmist Potsdam Institute for Climate Hysteria Impact Research. They argue that bats are the likely zoonotic origin of SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2. The local number of coronaviruses is said to correlate with “bat species richness”, with climate change shifting the global distribution of bats. This “bat richness” has strongly increased the likelihood of SARS-CoV-1 and 2 outbreaks; hence climate change may have been an important factor in these outbreaks.

Here we show that the southern Chinese Yunnan province and neighbouring regions in Myanmar and Laos form a global hotspot of climate change-driven increase in bat richness. This region coincides with the likely spatial origin of bat-borne ancestors of SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2. Accounting for an estimated increase in the order of 100 bat-borne CoVs across the region, climate change may have played a key role in the evolution or transmission of the two SARS CoVs. (R M Beyer, A Manica and C Mora, 2021)

A simultaneous media release showed how keen the authors are on climate change playing a bigger role in the COVID drama. Surely it too should be addressed “as part of COVID-19 economic recovery programmes.” 

The ‘Science’ of Climate Change By Norman Rogers

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/09/the_science_of_climate_change.html

The science surrounding COVID has been hijacked for political purposes. People recovered from the disease are pushed to get vaccinated, even though they have a natural immunity that is stronger than vaccine immunity. People are required to wear masks even though masks are essentially useless for preventing infection. People that die are reported as dying of COVID even though they died of something else. The government demands that children be vaccinated even though they are naturally resistant to the disease and suffer disturbing side effects from the vaccine. Schools are closed for no good reason.

The “science” of climate change is also BS. That should be easier to accept after seeing what the government did to COVID science. Why do politicians want to hype a nonexistent climate crisis? In a word: power. By claiming that there is an urgent climate crisis the politicians can spend billions to fight the imaginary foe. Those billions create political allies and reward friends. H.L. Mencken put it nicely in 1918:

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”

The parade of imaginary environmental catastrophes during the last 70 years is very long. Here are some books predicting this or that environmental disaster: Our Plundered Planet (1948), Road to Survival (1948), Silent Spring (1962), Famine 1975! (1967), The Population Bomb (1968), The Limits to Growth (1972), An Inconvenient Truth (2006), This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. Climate (2014), The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming (2019).

Richard Lindzen, one of the most accomplished climate scientists in the world by virtue of his discoveries, does not have to kowtow to the global warming mob. In an essay he pointed out that scientific data that challenges the global warming hypothesis are simply changed. He cites examples of how environmental extremists have infiltrated scientific organizations.

Even With Climate Change, the World Isn’t Doomed Humanity has overcome far greater problems before and can do so again.By Bjorn Lomborg

https://www.wsj.com/articles/climate-change-world-doomed-gdp-warming-earth-11632338084?mod=opinion_lead_pos8

Editor’s note: As November’s global climate conference in Glasgow draws near, important facts about climate change don’t always make it into the dominant media coverage. We’re here to help. Each Thursday contributor Bjorn Lomborg will provide some important background so readers can have a better understanding of the true effects of climate change and the real costs of climate policy.

Young people across the world are terrified of climate change, according to a forthcoming Lancet study. More than 45% of people 16 to 25 in the 10 countries surveyed are so worried that it affects their daily life and functioning. Almost half of young Americans believe “humanity is doomed,” and two-thirds think “the future is frightening.” But while climate change is a problem, panic is unwarranted.

The data show that humanity has overcome much larger threats over the past century. In 1900, if humanity had gotten rid of air pollution—mostly indoor pollution caused by smoky fuels like wood and dung—the benefit would have been equivalent to global gross domestic product rising 23%. To a young audience, that might look like an insufficient measure of well-being, but higher GDP means better health, lower mortality, greater access to education and in general a better standard of living. By 2050 the problem of air pollution will be mostly solved. And that’s only one of the many issues humanity has shorn down over the last 100 years, according to data 21 top economists and I gathered.

The challenge climate change poses, both to the environment and society, looks rather small compared to those humanity has already met. Noble Prize-winning climate economist William Nordhaus has shown that a 6.3-degree Fahrenheit rise in world temperatures by 2100—which is probable if policy makers do little to stop climate change—would cost only 2.8% of global GDP a year. The United Nations’ latest estimate puts it even lower at 2.6% of GDP for a 6.6-degree Fahrenheit increase.

Greta’s Chumps Climate zeal decides an election in Norway. Bruce Bawer

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/09/gretas-chumps-bruce-bawer/

The main thing you need to know about the results of last week’s Norwegian elections is that the international media and political elites were absolutely thrilled – just like when Joe Biden won. “America is back!” they cheered in the world’s corridors of power last November. Similar sentiments greeted the news that Norway’s left-wing parties had secured a majority of parliamentary seats, ousting the conservatives.

In a time when China and Russia are saber-rattling, when the COVID lockdown has decimated economies, and when the dire process of Islamization continues in Europe, the top issue in the Norwegian election was – what else? – climate change. No surprise. The nation’s state-run media corporation – a reliable fount of leftist agitprop – has been pushing the existential-threat, time-is-running-out line for years. This time around, deluged with Greta Thunberg-style campaign rhetoric, a significant number of voters listened. Why? Partly because many Norwegians are highly susceptible to save-the-world pitches: this is, after all, the “peace nation,” which derives much of its sense of identity from brokering accords and being a founding member of the UN. But also partly because of the central role of nature in Norwegian culture.

You see, you’re not a true Norwegian unless you’re devoted to friluftsliv – life out in the open air. (The word was coined by Henrik Ibsen in 1859.) Taking walks in the mountains isn’t just a popular pastime but something more like a sacred ritual. The late Arne Næss, the country’s foremost modern philosopher (and, briefly, uncle-in-law of Diana Ross) built up his whole philosophy around the zen of mountain climbing, the importance of going outside and breathing fresh air, and the proposition that the rights of plants are equal to those of human beings. This intense attachment to nature makes Norwegians very eco-conscious, and gives them a fierce sense of custodianship of the natural world – and hence makes them the perfect suckers for the climate-change hustle.

Here’s just one example of Norwegians’ determination to do good by the environment: in no other country has a higher percentage of the population bought into the electric-car scam. Since 2016, the market share of plug-in vehicles has skyrocketed from 29.1% to 74.7%. As for those Luddites who still rely on fossil fuels, you might expect them to be charged reasonable prices at the pump, given that Norway’s biggest industry is the extraction of North Sea oil and gas. (After all, Venezuelans pay less than a penny per gallon – one of the few advantages of living in that hellhole.) But nope: owing to punitive taxes, Norwegian motorists pay the world’s second highest gasoline prices. And most accept their punishment uncomplainingly, like the repentant sinners they are.

Checking In With The “Smart” People At Harvard Francis Menton

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2021-9-18-checking-in-with-the-smart-people-at-harvard

Are the “smart” people really very smart? That is, do the people who score at the top on standardized tests and then turn up at the fancy universities actually have a superior level of reasoning and rationality that they can apply to solving the problems of the world? Or are they instead just trapped in the same sorts of groupthink and mass irrationality as everyone else?

Well, let’s consider the latest information coming out of Harvard University. Harvard — you can’t get any “smarter” than that. This is America’s premier institution of higher learning. You don’t get to go there unless you are at the very top of the top of intelligence. And the people who run the place have to be even smarter still. If you want to see what “smart” really is, this is where to look.

About a week ago Harvard President Larry Bacow decided it was time to send out one of those occasional missives addressed to all “Members of the Harvard Community.” Likely, you might think, this would be an occasion for Harvard to announce some incremental enhancements to its efforts to fulfill the core mission of educating the students. Hardly. People, this is Harvard — we don’t think small. So instead, the purpose of the communication is to tell us that Harvard is on the front lines in the battle to save the world. Bacow:

Climate change is the most consequential threat facing humanity. . . . We are going to need a little optimism to preserve life on Earth as we know and cherish it today.

And how exactly do we know that “climate change is the most consequential threat facing humanity”? Easy — in the Harvard way, we just look to the evidence before our very eyes:

The last several months have laid at our feet undeniable evidence of the world to come—massive fires that consume entire towns, unprecedented flooding that inundates major urban areas, record heat waves and drought that devastate food supplies and increase water scarcity. Few, if any, parts of the globe are being spared as livelihoods are dashed, lives are lost, and regions are rendered unlivable.

Afghanistan and climate change: the West’s twin failures: Both have the same cause: a failure to accept reality Rupert Darwall

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/afghanistan-climate-change-west-failures/

The West’s humiliation in Afghanistan has an older brother: climate change.

As siblings, the two share characteristics, most obviously an inability to confront unwelcome facts. In Afghanistan, there was a large constituency led by the Pentagon invested in the mantra of proclaiming progress in the fight against the Taliban. Climate has its own industrial complex of NGOs, climate scientists, renewable energy lobbyists profiting from the energy transition, eager helpers in the media, and politicians posing as world saviors.

Energy experts tell us renewable energy is cheaper than building new fossil fuel power stations. If they’re right, why did China build the equivalent of more than one large coal plant a week last year? Its slave labor camps help produce materials for Chinese solar panels, which make them the cheapest in the world. This led the Biden administration to ban their importation. In 10 years, India — a country more susceptible to Western fads — increased the amount of electricity it generated from coal nearly six times faster than from wind and solar. In 2020, fossil fuels accounted for almost 90 percent of India’s primary energy consumption.

These facts help explain the biggest fact of all. The first 20 years after the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change saw carbon dioxide emissions rise 60 percent. From 2012 to 2019, they rose a further 5.4 percent. However this is dressed up, it’s failure. Meanwhile, the West’s energy emissions have been more or less flat for nearly three decades and on a downward trend since 2007. Emissions from the Rest of the World account for all the growth in global emissions, suddenly accelerating in 2002 from an average of around 1 percent a year to nearly 5 percent a year in the 12 years until 2014.

As a matter of simple arithmetic, the West’s declining share of global emissions means that whatever it does or doesn’t do is of diminishing relevance to the future of climate change. The West’s solipsism of ‘we’ — as in ‘we must act’ — is a profound self-deception.

This delusion is mirrored in the West’s climate diplomacy. At the 2009 Copenhagen climate conference, Western nations made their most determined attempt to include the powerhouse economies of the rest of the world in a legally binding global emissions reduction regime. It failed. China and India, joined by South Africa and Brazil, said no. Without a global emissions regime, unilateral emissions cuts are senseless. The Senate understood this in 1997 when Joe Biden, John Kerry and 93 other senators voted unanimously to adopt the Byrd-Hagel resolution, effectively vetoing American participation in the Kyoto Protocol on the grounds that it excluded the majority of the world.

Europe’s Climate Lesson for America As wind power flags, energy prices are soaring amid fuel shortages.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/europe-climate-lesson-for-america-energy-prices-fuel-wind-11631655375?mod=opinion_lead_pos3

Energy prices are soaring in Europe, and the effects are rippling across the Atlantic. Blame anti-carbon policies of the kind that the Biden Administration wants to impose in the U.S.

Electricity prices in the U.K. this week jumped to a record £354 ($490) per megawatt hour, a 700% increase from the 2010 to 2020 average. Germany’s electricity benchmark has doubled this year. Last month’s 12.3% increase was the largest since 1974 and contributed to the highest inflation reading since 1993. Other economies are experiencing similar spikes.

Europe’s anti-carbon policies have created a fossil-fuel shortage. Governments have heavily subsidized renewables like wind and solar and shut down coal plants to meet their commitments under the Paris climate accord. But wind power this summer has flagged, so countries are scrambling to import more fossil fuels to power their grids.

European natural-gas spot prices have increased five-fold in the last year. Some energy providers are burning cheaper coal, but its prices have tripled. Rising fossil-fuel consumption has caused demand and prices for carbon permits under the Continent’s cap-and-trade scheme to surge, which has pushed electricity prices even higher.

Russia has exploited the chaos by slowing gas deliveries, ostensibly to increase pressure on Germany to finish the Nord Stream 2 pipeline certification. Vladimir Putin last week took a swipe at the “smart alecs” in the European Commission for “market-based” pricing that increased competition in gas, including from U.S. liquefied natural gas imports.

Mr. Putin can throw his weight around in Europe because the rest of the world also needs his gas. Drought has reduced hydropower in Asia, and manufacturers are using more energy to supply the West with more goods. Due to a gas and coal shortage, China has rationed power to its aluminum smelters and aluminum prices this week hit a 13-year high.

Brrr… Arctic Sea Ice Melt the Lowest in 15 Years, Antarctic Sea Ice Above Average By Jim Hoft

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/09/brrr-arctic-sea-ice-melt-lowest-15-years-antactic-sea-ice-average/

Do you remember when AOC said we had only 12 years left on the planet due to “climate change”?

Yeah… She’s an idiot.We’re going to be fine – and we don’t need to destroy the US economy to save the planet.

The Arctic sea ice is the highest it’s been in nine years. It has increased more than 30% from last year.

And Antarctic sea ice is way above normal.

Tony Heller

@Tony__Heller
The Arctic Ocean gained a record amount of sea ice during the first week of September. Most years the Arctic loses ice, but this year ice extent has increased almost 200,000 km. sq. This will not be reported by @CNN @BBCNews or the @nytimes

The World Is Getting Safer From Floods By Bjorn Lomborg

https://www.wsj.com/articles/flood-climate-change-ipcc-united-nations-infrastructure-deaths-cost-severe-weather-11631134276?mod=opinion_lead_pos8

Each Thursday contributor Bjorn Lomborg will provide some important background so readers can have a better understanding of the true effects of climate change and the real costs of climate policy.

Climate change may raise waters and more Americans than ever live in floodplains, but technology and infrastructure protect them.Climate change may raise waters and more Americans than ever live in floodplains, but technology and infrastructure protect them.

Though the images of abandoned cars in waterlogged East Coast streets might make you think otherwise, the relative toll that floods take on the U.S.—in property and lives—has decreased over time. Flooding costs as a share of gross domestic product declined almost 10-fold since 1903 to 0.05% of GDP, while annual flood death risk—fatalities per million—dropped almost threefold. World-wide data are sparser, but flood research shows costs relative to GDP and deaths relative to population have decreased globally from 1980 to 2010.

Scary headlines about rising flood costs tend to come from misleading statistics of total damages, which say more about U.S. economic growth than they do about climate change. Since the start of the 20th century, the U.S. population has quadrupled and annual GDP has increased 36-fold. There are more people and structures in the U.S. than ever—including in floodplains. A flood that hits, say, Atlanta, will encounter far more people and buildings today than 30 years ago. The number of exposed housing units in the city’s floodplain went up by 58% from 1990 to 2010. At the same time, greater wealth and better technology have made people and property in low-lying areas safer from floods. Only when you look at damages in the context of GDP can you filter out what’s a sign of growing wealth and what indicates flood resiliency or vulnerability.